Canal Guardian, 1952
"Mike Harrigan, who has spent
29 years on harbor duty with the Police Department, really considers
Gowanus a 'region of the dead,' like the River Styx of mythology.
He should - he has picked up, he recollects, 'a couple of thousand
dead bodies' while on duty there and on the now filled-in Wallabout
Canal. The Canal vet also remembers when a baby whale tried to make
the Canal his home and got stuck in the pumping station installed
to move the Aroma de Gowanus along. He doesn't notice the olfactory
impact of the Canal - thinks the Canal has cost him his sense of smell."
- From the Brooklyn Eagle, June 22, 1952
Photo: Jules Geller (Source:
Brooklyn Collection, Brooklyn Public Library)
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